Darke Mission (41 page)

“Roger that, chief.”

Seconds later, Jim Bradbury drove his PetroChina tanker sideways across both lanes of Highway One, screeching his brakes as he applied full lock. The Iceman, in the second tanker, travelling at close to no miles per hour, drove his tanker broadside into Jim's. The Iceman, effectively invisible to the ground and watchtower guards, due to Jim's tanker providing cover, leapt out of his cabin, stayed low and dropped into a ditch at the side of the road, making his way quietly along the ditch towards the jeep driven by Lily. The four soldiers on barrier duty saw the tanker chaos. Two of them stayed in their positions, pointing their rifles at the lead cars in the southbound queue and yelling at them not to move. The other two ran past JJ's van and Lily's jeep on their way to the sideways tanker. Jim Bradbury was already out of his cabin, but he had no opportunity to hit the ditch. Realising this he feigned injury and started staggering around, leaning against the tanker as he willie-wobbled his way towards the side of the road.

The running soldiers were on him in a flash. One stood rooted to the spot, aiming his rifle at Jim's head, the other had pushed Jim to the ground and was bawling at him in Korean. Jim understood what he was raving about.

“Get down you slimy dog, foreign idiot,” were the choicest of the plethora of insults coming Jim's way. The pushing guard demanded Jim's papers and told him not to move a muscle, presumably over and above the ones he needed to get his papers.

JJ could make out some of the action from his offside exterior mirror. The guards were not likely to let Jim go. The incident at Haeju docks had them all twitchy and here was a foreign git, American to boot, just lost control of a disguised Chinese petrol tanker at one of the DPRK's key checkpoints. Jim Bradbury was going nowhere. JJ glanced at his interior mirror and saw the thumbs up from Ethel. Lily must be in the back of the jeep, so at least that was good.

“Victor,” said JJ, “this may seem a bit late in the day, but can you drive?”

“Sure,” said Victor, still a bit rattled by ongoing events.

“OK, I need to get out of the van. When I do, get into the driver's seat, and be ready to take off like a fucking demon with its arse on fire when I return.”

Victor nodded. He had a clear vision of a demon with its rear end on fire and it would surely be moving fast to quench that burn. JJ slipped out of the van, the guards at the barrier still had their full attention on the lead car in the queue. The watchtower soldiers were focussed on the kerfuffle at Jim's tanker. JJ lay on the ground between the rear of his van and the front of Lily's jeep. Silently, he removed his crossbow from its harness on his back, had a firm hold of its hand grip and was scanning through its reticle. Without looking, JJ took one of the arrows from its quiver. He had a dozen arrows with him, gold tipped, carbon and graphite shafted Expedition Hunter arrows, with three green and red vanes. JJ had the watchtower guard with the clearest view of Jim Bradbury, in his sights. It was a grim morning, occasionally raining, with near full cloud cover. JJ could also see the other watchtower guard. He too was following the petrol tanker action. Crossbows tend to be less efficient than longbows in the sense that a skilled longbow man could release two to four arrows for every crossbow shot. However, crossbows are better at close quarters. They tend to be more accurate, require less upper body strength to reload and are more manageable. JJ's was light, compact, had a telescopic sight and pistol grip. He was not going to miss. He didn't. JJ's first arrow penetrated the head of the watchtower guard through his right ear. He crumpled, dead before he had fully hit the ground. Apart from the muffled sound of the guard and his rifle tumbling to the wooden floor of his watchtower there was no noise. JJ didn't hang about to see if anyone had noticed the missing watchtower guard, he swivelled on his belly and reloaded. From pull, to load, to shoot took JJ about ten to fifteen seconds. It seemed a lot longer but the second watchtower guard had not budged from his observation spot. JJ fired. Second watchtower guard went down. This time the arrow penetrated the soldier's carotid artery. Blood exploded everywhere from his neck and there must have been a second or two of gurgling from the doomed guard. At ground level, however, nothing was heard.

Engines were ticking over, guards were shouting at Jim and conversing loudly amongst themselves. With JJ on the deck and Ethel sitting in the jeep's passenger seat, she could not see her former trainee. She did notice, however, that the watchtower guards had disappeared from view, so she had a good idea what had gone down. Keeping her head low and indicating to Lily that she was going to step outside, Ethel slipped out of the jeep. She crouched down near the front of the jeep and spotted JJ, still in the prone position, crossbow reloaded.

“Hey, Tell of Switzerland,” whispered Ethel. “Been firing at apples?”

“Just Adam's apples,” responded JJ. “Ginger, those guards are never going to let Jim go. We need to neutralise them. I can get the standing one but I won't have time to reload to get the one that's currently got Jim by the throat.”

“I can take him out,” said Ethel, without a flinch and simultaneously taking her Glock 17 out of its holster and attaching its titanium suppressor.

“Good,” said JJ. “You'll need to get quite close. Go round the back of the jeep. When you see the standing guard fall, the other one will probably let Jim go and turn to see what's happening. Drop him. Then get Jim and yourself back in the jeep and go like a bat out of hell. I'll sprint for the van as soon as I've loosed my arrow. Victor's prepped to go. The barrier guards will fire on us but there're only two of them now. We'll barge our way through. Good luck.” With that JJ resumed his attack position. He counted to three then fired. The standing guard was down. The soldier that had been holding Jim turned and saw his comrade collapse. Before he could respond, Ethel was standing a few metres away and fired, pop, pop, pop. Three bullets, two in the chest, one in his left leg. The soldier was down, but he was still alive.

As Ginger's third shot hit its mark, JJ had scrambled back into the front passenger seat of the van. Victor engaged first gear, pulled out of the queue and floored the accelerator. Ethel and a slightly shaken Jim were a second or two behind as Jim tumbled into the back of the jeep next to the Iceman. Ethel was now in her seat. The two barrier guards took a few seconds to react. Victor had sped over the crossing before the barrier could be fully in its lowered position. The guards fired at the van but hit nothing bar metal. By the time Lily had reached the crossing in the jeep, the barrier was down. He went right through it. The guards fired at the jeep, glass shattered but no one seemed hurt. The soldiers in the billet were now scrambling through its door and heading for their jeeps to give chase.

Van and jeep sped down the road. The Hwangu checkpoint was only twenty kilometres away. Even though it was loaded to the gunnels the augmented Sprinter van could still easily do 60-70mph, the local jeep too with some strain. They would be upon that checkpoint in under fifteen minutes. Long enough for the Hwangu soldiers to be prepared but not long enough for the chasing soldiers to catch them if they ever could in their antiquated Chinese jeeps.

“Jim,” said Ethel. “Are you OK?”

“Fine, Ethel, thanks. Good job back there, that gook was really pressing on my throat. I don't know how he expected me to answer his fucking inane questions when I couldn't breathe.”

“No problem,” replied Ethel as she winced and felt nauseous. “Jim, I think I've been hit,” said Ethel, knowing full well that she had, both from the pain and the bright red blood that was on her hand holding her shoulder. Jim and the Iceman carefully manoeuvred Ethel into the back of the jeep. Droplets of her blood splattered the cash, good job it was wrapped, thought the Iceman. It was tight in the back as the cash took up quite a chunk of space. Jim climbed into the front passenger seat while the Iceman got out the emergency medical supplies and tended to Ethel.

“JJ, come in, it's Jim,” said Bradbury speaking into the walkie-talkie.

“Jim, you OK?”

“I'm fine, JJ, but Ethel is hit.”

“Is it bad, can you fix her up?” asked JJ, with deep concern in his voice, he really liked Ethel.

“It's a shoulder wound. The Iceman is patching her up, but she's lost some blood so she'll need to go to a hospital soon,” the KLO informed his friend.

“OK, do your best. I'll figure out what to do. We're about ten minutes from Hwangu now. Once we're through there we should have a straight run to Kaesŏng. Tell Ginger to hang in there. She's a top girl.”

“Will do,” said Jim.

Ten minutes can seem like a long or short time depending on what you're up to. Waiting for the dentist, it's way too short. One – nil up for your team in the final of the Champions League, it's way too long. Being chased by North Korean soldiers before the next checkpoint, it seemed way too long. For Ethel it was too long. In reality, it was all the same.

“Victor, don't slow, just go,” instructed JJ. The Scot had decided that their two vehicle convoy was simply going to crash through the Hwangu checkpoint. Normally, that checkpoint was lightly guarded, less than a handful of soldiers. The incident at Haeju dock probably meant that no extra military could be re-deployed to Hwangu. It was a gamble, but Ethel's condition meant there could be no pussyfooting around. Victor did as directed. He put the pedal to the metal and the Sprinter van was bearing down on the checkpoint. The jeep was struggling to keep up and Lily was virtually standing on the accelerator so the gap to the van was not widening. To the rear, there was no sign of chasing Chinese jeeps.

The barrier at the Hwangu checkpoint was down and in place. There was one jeep and three guards behind it. No watchtower and no extra billeted soldiers. Victor was visibly apprehensive. JJ could see that.

“Victor, it's a straight run,” said JJ, hoping to steady the young safe cracker's nerves. “Stay low. You'll break the barrier no problem, given the weight of this van, and you'll knock their toy jeep out of the way easily.”

Victor was reassured. He didn't lift. The soldiers were firing, zip, zip, crash. Two bullets into the windscreen, no human injuries. Crash went the barrier, the soldiers' jeep moved at least ten yards and toppled. The soldiers were down, dazed but alive. Victor looked up. No more obstacles on the road ahead. JJ checked Lily's jeep from the interior mirror. Seemed OK. They were through and clear, no more checkpoints till Kaesŏng, a mere twenty to twenty-five miles away. They were twenty minutes' drive away from the border crossing but only fifteen minutes before the security detail at the central bank was changed and the alarm raised. This was going to be tight.

“Jim,” said the Scot into his walkie-talkie. “Everybody OK?”

“We are,” replied Jim. “We didn't take a shot this time. You guys OK?”

“We're fine. Victor was wicked,” replied JJ using the modern meaning of the word, to indicate not wicked, but excellent.

The convoy settled back into its high speed rhythm. JJ continued to chat to Jim for a few minutes, enquiring after Ethel and checking that his CIA friend knew what to do at the Kaesŏng crossing. Ethel was drifting in and out of consciousness. She needed hospitalised ASAP. As they hurtled towards the border, Jim was on his secure cell phone arranging for his team at PAU Travel to get an ambulance with paramedics to be in situ for their arrival. It would be done. Ethel would go to the main hospital in Seoul, world renowned, and with a staff eminently capable of dealing with gunshot wounds.

* * *

The Korean People's Air Force has an estimated attack helicopter force of between one and two hundred, ranging from the lightweight modified MD-500 to the heavyweight troop transporting gunship, the Mi-24. At least half of these are kitted out as training aircraft, and are located at several bases in the North. The nearest KPA helicopter base to JJ's convoy was located in Taetan County, not far from Hwangu. This base, today, had two operational Mi-2 light transport and light combat helicopters and one modified MD-500. The rest of the helicopters were either out of commission, being serviced or at Haeju docks. The helicopter crew at the Taetan base and on call, belonged to one of the modified MD-500s. This was an old helicopter, from the 1980s, ironically manufactured in South Korea and built in the USA. Initially, it had no attack capabilities, but had been modified by the KPA's aeronautical engineers to be a lightweight gunship. Maximum crew of five, with three in the one that was whirring overhead JJ's convoy.

Before expiring for good, the DPRK soldier Ethel had shot, managed to raise the alarm. The call for help was relayed to the Hwangu checkpoint, the secret police and the closest air base, which was at Taetan. Secret police were all over Haeju docks, or helping to interrogate Vice Admiral Goh and Commodore Park, now in detention in the capital. JJ and team were only ten minutes from the border crossing. The secret police could not get to them in time and the Hwangu checkpoint had been gate-crashed and rendered ineffective. There was a risk that one of the KPA's MiG jet fighters would be scrambled to hunt down the van. The nearest MiG base was at Hwangu, but many of the operational fighter jets stationed there were out submarine hunting. It was close, but JJ's team may just have enough time. The helicopter overhead may be the DPRK's last realistic chance to kill or capture the fleeing foreigners before they reached the border crossing.

“Jim, do you hear the chopper?” asked JJ.

“Yes. Can't see it yet but it must be near.”

“There's no street or road lights here and there won't be any until Kaesŏng. Kill your jeep's lights and drive off the main road behind a tree or something. We'll do the same. We don't have any anti-aircraft weapons in the van. Check with Lily and the Iceman, they may have taken something heavy with them.”